Point guards are human carnivals.
Point guards, unlike most positions in sports, have the freedom and flow to creatively create highlights and high scorers.
Point guards, like the Wu-Tang Clan once rapped, “Slide in, sickenin’, guaranteed made ’em jump like Rod Strickland.”
And if Washington’s John Wall keeps putting up video- game numbers, he could be the third consecutive point guard to win rookie of the year — and all three played under college coach John Calipari, who employs Strickland to grow prodigies.
Strickland was raised on the blacktops of New York, a streetball legend who became an NBA mainstay in the 1990s. At Memphis and now Kentucky, Strickland had his quick hands in the development of Derrick Rose (now an all-star with the Bulls), Tyreke Evans (who averaged 20.1 points-5.3 rebounds-5.8 assists last year with the Kings) and Wall (who, in his home debut, scored 29 points with 13 assists and nine steals vs. Philadelphia).
“You have to have a swagger,” Strickland said by phone about what makes a point guard. “You have to believe in yourself, people got to know you believe in yourself, and that’s the way you carry yourself on the court. It’s just a confidence. You got to have it — you can’t survive without it. And all three of those guys have a mean swagger.
“They’re different. J-Wall is the most outgoing. D-Rose has an inner swagger. He’s not a rah-rah, big-time emotional dude, but you’ll see him clenching his teeth. Tyreke’s, you can see it, as well. It’s not as blatant as J-Wall’s, but you can see it in his run, when his swagger is really getting there.”
To be fair, all three of those guards were pretty proficient when they showed up on campus; each left after one season, Rose the first pick in 2008, Evans fourth in ’09 and Wall first this year.
But Strickland and the coaching staff made them NBA-ready. At Memphis, Rose, well, blossomed. Rose came to campus quiet and unselfish, happy to notch assists.
“He was reluctant to shoot,” said Strickland, 44. “I remember telling him that — stop giving guys nights off. You go at everybody. When players look at the video before a game, they should be nervous before they play.”
The Memphis staff started Evans as a shooting guard but realized he was settling for jumpers too often.
“Once we put the ball in his hands and let him create,” Strickland said, “it was over.”
When you think of Wall, you think of the smile and the silly dancing. And that’s the personality he splashed upon the Kentucky program.
“He was a lot more vocal than the other two from the beginning — he came in and there was no question who the leader was,” Strickland said. “We had to tone him down.”
Strickland watched on television as Wall nearly notched that rarest of triple- doubles against the Sixers. Impressed, sure. Surprised?
“That’s John Wall — when those lights come on, he loves it,” Strickland said. “The bigger the stage, the better he’ll play. That’s just how he is.”
Karl on Wall.
Asked about what he thought of Wall’s breakout game, Denver coach George Karl said with a little chuckle: “You want to know the truth? I yelled at my assistant coaches — ‘J.R. (Smith) is just as quick as him, why can’t you get J.R. to play like him?’ That’s exactly what I said to them. That’s the way J.R. can play.”
New Knick.
It’s surprising that Amar’e Stoudemire, the Knicks’ $100 million man, averaged just 19.5 points and 7.8 rebounds after the Knicks’ first four games — especially because the Knicks play in such a high-tempo offense.
“Stoudemire gets a lot of touches, but he’s also a decoy a lot and tries to suck the defense in toward him for the 3-ball,” Karl said. “They were 16-for-24 with the 3-ball against Chicago (last Thursday). When you play them, you have to decide what you want to take out and what you want to prioritize. Stoudemire is a force that makes the defense make mistakes.”
SPOTLIGHT ON
Heartbroken Cleveland fans
The Cavaliers are trudging through this season with LeBron James’ old supporting cast now as their main attractions. While James lives the South Beach life, the proud folks in Cleveland were, once again, miffed by LeBron when his recent Nike commercial, the one where he asks a lot of rhetorical questions, came across as a woe-is-me plea. A Cleveland-based filmmaker named Dan Wantz made a spoof of that commercial, featuring clips from that ad and also of Clevelanders responding to some of the questions he posed in the Nike ad.
For instance, they showed a quick clip of him asking aloud, “What should I do?”
Then a fan responded by saying: “You should throw it in our faces on national television.”
There were more.
LeBron: “Should I really believe I ruined my legacy?”
Fan: “When things get difficult, you run – that’s your legacy.”
LeBron: “Should I be who you want me to be?”
Fan: “We wanted you to be who you said you’d be . . .”
And then, the commercial aired LeBron’s voice from a previous season:
“I have a goal . . . to bring an NBA championship here to Cleveland, and I won’t stop until I get it.”
Type this link in, it’s worth it: youtube.com/watch?v=NvgD9HNTMkM
Benjamin Hochman, The Denver Post
